So I've got to get some perspective on who I used to be because it was a serious mess. And part of it was real, but part of it was precipitated by the situation I was in. I was just screaming for attention. Shannon put me in this spot where she offered me her love and then took it away and I had to beg for it from that point on. So I was resentful of that, but needy because of it. And I 1. tried to prove that I was okay, that I was good enough for her or better than her. And 2, I tried to develop a personality that she could be envious of or that she would want. As well as, I developed this need to always beg for people's attentions.

I had to always beg for Dave's attention, and Shannon's attention and Dan's attention. Because all three would frequently give me love but then abandon me and I loved all of them, obviously more obsessively than they loved me. None of them seemed to need me.

I had to be big and obnoxious. It started with the journal entries, because when Shannon was distant, I knew that I could say things to my journal pretending like it had nothing to do with her when it had everything to do with her. What I mean is, everything I said was to get a reaction out of her. To make her jealous or to make her want me or to punish her. Everything. And I could pretend that I hadn't intended to do anything because I was only writing a journal entry, not talking directly to her. If she reacted, she reacted. If she didn't, I had nothing to lose. And that's how my journal entries began and that's why it took me so damn long to kick the habit of speaking to her, while writing my journal entries. Because it had never been anything but subliminally speaking to her to impress or punish her.

And always trying to get a reaction. It's not that I wasn't needy before, because I was, although at this point, I can't remember cause I wasn't reading conversations from before Shannon. I copied and pasted the ones around the time of Shannon in my lj, so without Shannon I had no lj, therefore, I didn't paste any conversations from before her there to read. Although I did save lots of old ones, they're somewhere on backup CDs.

In any case, it wasn't that she made me who I am. It was that she brought out this response in an extreme way. Dave was always saying he liked me for a week and then changing his mind for another year and I was obsessed with him so I wanted his attention. I had to be big to get it. I had to be bold and pretend I wasn't hurt and pretend I wasn't needy. So I ended up just showing way too much personality. Like I had to say what I wanted to say without being asked, because that was the point, I was feeling rejected so I had to pretend that nothing bothered me. But just being passive and neutral wasn't going to get any attention and since I was bothered, it overwhelmed me to just sit there and do nothing. So I HAD to be big and bold to get a reaction out of him.

I kind of created someone I didn't really mean to be. It's not that what I felt or said wasn't really what I said or felt. But the proportions and the exaggerations and the concentrations were unhealthy and definitely connected with the people I cared about.

I remember some of the first messages I sent to Shannon. And I liked that I could describe the emotional feelings I had, mostly lust. And I didn't lose that for a long time.

I had this false belief that emotions are superior. Like nature, speaking on my behalf. Like I naturally feel the way I feel. But that's not what emotions are. And they're not justified by nature. Nor are they superior. They aren't the most superior representation of who you are and how you feel. I guess because they're attached to your beliefs... and the emotions motivate you based on those beliefs, they fuel it. So you feel that any emotion that is doing the work, like a soldier, for a superior kingdom, must be justified. No matter how crazy, no matter what lengths it goes to to reach the kingdom's goal.

I say how I feel and what I want and when I'm angry and when I'm sad and I say it like it automatically means that I should get whatever appeases my emotions. That people should cater to my emotions and give me what I please.

Who was I? I wasn't really that crazy. I was, of course, needy. Because I didn't feel that I had any self-worth. I'm still, now, working on self-worth. I was messed up because I tried to fit into Shannon's psychotic world. Being her friend became my lifestyle, she was one of the closest people to me. But everything I learned from being her friend was a bad habit. Everything I did to punish her, all that made me resent her, everything I did to make her want me was extremely misguided and that became my habit.

I, in short, reacted very emotionally to everything that anybody said. Defensive, angry, pouty, scared, rude, quick to judge another's intentions. It's different from who I am now, of course, but it was real at the time. I just can't help but feel that it was Purposely exaggerated. Like I felt that I was supposed to be extremely emotional, so that's what I focused on.

And then Mike was the catalyst. And that's slightly ironic for an astrologist because he and Shannon have the exact same birthday. July 23 1989. Weird that he pulled me away from who I had been with Shannon.

I've analyzed it a thousand times. What I was missing was self-worth. And that's what our relationship gave me. Stability. I didn't have to beg to be who I was. I didn't have to beg people to care about me or give me attention. Mike just solidly loved me, solidly paid attention to me. He was in my life. None of that Dan bullshit with asking me out and then ignoring me for like two weeks straight. Mike was there by my side faithfully. And the stability calmed my emotions. I didn't have to fight to share myself with someone anymore. And, of course, Shannon was out of my life even though I still hated her passionately.

And I learned a lot from Mike. Probably cause I saw ourselves as twin flames. I learned about the ego while dating Mike. I saw it in him. I saw it in the way we interacted with each other. It's like, I was too damn busy analyzing my crazy emotions, running around in daft circles, trying to impress whoever, trying to earn whatever. But being with Mike calmed my anxieties completely and I was just filled with love. I never loved Shannon. Always hated her. Didn't trust her, couldn't be myself around her. Didn't feel worth enough to her. It was a dark relationship. Nothing about it from the day I came back to NY was beneficial to me. And I have a lot of capabilities to see the positive side of something bad. I just can't see how my association with her helped me develop positively at all. The only thing it gave me was livejournal and lesbian sex.

In any case, Mike's relationship was completely opposite. Full of bliss. Never hurt by him or insecure. I never begged. He seemed to give me so much acceptance, where I had previously been jerked around over and over again. And him accepting me taught me what it felt like to accept myself, and when I could accept myself, I developed more naturally and beneficially than I had previously. I wasn't trying to be anything. I wasn't full of hate or resentment or fear.

I mean, I can remember so many fights. But I remember loving him. Whenever I fight with people I get really hostile. I feel, when I fight with people, that I'm their enemy. Therefore, I need them to be mine. I fear that they'll make me their enemy, therefore I make them my enemy first. All the fights with my family have made it so that it is very hard to say I love you to them. It's just a huge rift.

But I would fight with Mike, lots of times just head butting, LAME ego bickering. But I also stood up to his ego. In a sort of moralistic way. I developed a way to understand situations based on more objective morals than my insane emotional reasoning. Of course, it wasn't completely so. But it was a lot more developed than it had been previously. I kind of was like that before Shannon anyway. With Daniela and Jenny. When I was 11, I was the one to lecture and try to help people and push them to make the right decisions when they were running around in futile circles.

I tried to do that with Shannon, and I guess I was just way too attached because I liked her as more than a friend. Not that I didn't like Mike as more than a friend, of course. But that's just it. Loving someone and being rejected fucks you up way more than loving someone and being accepted. We've all seen how children who grow up trying to earn their parents love are.

I don't understand what I did to deserve Mike. I don't see any progress I made except to separate myself from Shannon. It doesn't seem like a logical next step - from Shannon to Mike. But whatever it was that brought him into my life it truly was a catalyst.

But in any case, as I was saying about the fighting... I started challenging his ego. And it wasn't always with my ego. I started to understand the ego that I'd always had and the ego that showed in him. And the nonsensical contributions it makes. And I knew that I wasn't fighting him, nor was I fighting through my own emotional body. I no longer feared or hated. My ego got frustrated when we would bicker, but it wasn't personal. It didn't make me hate him. That one time when we got in the huge fight over Uno. He doesn't like to lose. And everybody else lets him be a baby and get his way and I stood up to him like a two year old throwing temper tantrums, and just said, enough, this isn't right - in different words. But then in the car, when he was obviously mad at me, I wrote I love you on my hand to show him and we had a hand conversation. I didn't apologize for what I felt about the situation but I mended the bond. I didn't resent him for his side in the fighting. I knew that I could put myself out there and love him and forgive him and it wouldn't get thrown back in my face.

I did kind of feel that he was a child and that even when he said "I hate you mommy" it was only because of his ego and it wasn't how he really felt. I felt that we simply had a stable connected foundation, not susceptible to any destruction, unconquerable. And for the summer it proved to be. But I realize the importance of breaking up with him. He truly did give me, for a few months, a safe haven to love myself. But, of course, I had a lot of anger and hatred for everyone else. Like his acceptance made me feel worthy, more than any other person ever has, family, friends or lovers. But I still hadn't developed it independently. And part of the biggest lesson was to have his love for me turn, to have the one person who gave me a safe haven begin to hate me. To still feel worth despite that. And it was a pretty rocky year but it was a good year. A year spent in a new direction that I'd never been in before.

So anyway, I started this earlier when I'd been reading conversations and I had to find an explanation for the extreme behaviors I exhibited constantly. But then I got interrupted and like eight hours later - now - I've finished the entry just to finish it. I remember the bad extremes but I've also remembered the good aspects that I had. I was definitely often misguided by my emotions, but many of the qualities I had then, I obviously still have now. Just aimed in a better direction than they ever were when I was attached to Shannon.

So anyway, yeah, that's how I began the last paragraph. Amelia is in Florida now so I have to babysit Isis for the next 7 or 8 full days. I get nights off but I have to get enough sleep so that I can wake up at 7 in the morning and play with her all damn morning. The mornings are what kill me. And I'll have no help from Loren in the afternoon. Cause he leaves Tuesday and he'll be gone all tomorrow at a waterfall.

I love waterfalls.